English Textbook Reviews

Textbook Review (English education)

By EUJIN JEONG

Have you ever heard of integrated skills in learning English? Integrated skills mean having continuity when you learn English contents and skills. Recently, many people insist that integrated skills be very important when students learn English in the class. So, some of them suggest changing present textbooks into advanced textbooks which contain integrated skills. Then, does this suggestion mean that the current textbooks do not include any contents related to integrated skills? To find out what contents and English skills are included in current textbooks, let’s review one of the textbooks used in public school. The textbook which I am going to review is published by Jihaksa and used in high school English classes (I also learned English with this textbook in high school days).

This textbook is made up of 12 chapters and dealing with various kinds of topics from sports to the Earth. Each chapter consists of 14 or 15 parts which are carefully designed to improve students’ English skills. If you look at these parts carefully, you will find these have some similarities in contents and can be categorized into four different parts; listening, speaking, reading and writing. Each chapter contains exercises and practices for four essential skills in language learning. To improve genuine English ability, equal development of these skills is crucial because those four skills are needed in terms of well-balanced language development. The authors of this textbook knew the importance of the four skills, and thus included practices or activities in aims of developing those skills. However, this textbook needs some improvement in developing integrated skills. Although this textbook has sections designed to develop each language skill, there is not enough integrity among the four skills.

Then, let’s review this textbook more specifically. Every chapter starts with a part in which students listen to a script related to the main topic. After listening, some questions are given and students have to answer the questions. In each chapter, first three pages consist of exercises and questions developing listening skills. The next part is speaking. This part is little different from previous listening parts. This part consists of various activities like listening & reading a dialog, speaking own opinion and communicating with other students using key expressions. Although activities are somewhat related in terms of content, they are not integrated enough to generate one overall productive output. If there is more integration among the activities, it would be more effective for students to improve their English proficiency. The third part is reading. This part consists of one or two passages that are related to the main topic. Usually, students just read the passages and then learn important expressions and grammatical points. The last part is writing. But, in this part, there are only simple questions requiring completing blanks and arranging misplaced words. Actually, although this part is titled as “Let’s write,” this part is not related to actual writing skills. This is more like completing blanks, which is not about actual writing skills.

Until now, I reviewed the textbook. Overall, the authors of this textbook tried to include different sections designed to develop different language skills. However, sections in each chapter are not integrated with each other, meaning this textbook is simply organized by multiple skills. Although the quality of contents and activities is quite good, it would have been better to rearrange them to promote integrated skills. It definitely needs some improvements to make it more suitable to develop practical English skills of students. The textbook that I reviewed is one of the government designated textbooks. In Korea, most of the textbooks used in public schools contain similar activities, and are made in a similar fashion. Hopefully, Improvement in secondary school textbooks will bring about positive changes in English education in the country.

Textbook review (English Education)
By Sangwook Park

Have you ever heard of ‘Structure of Knowledge?’ This term means that every subject has its own structure of knowledge (or its core ideas or concepts). Bruner, a well-known pedagogist in the world, claimed that we should teach students it to make sure that they learn their subjects easily and truly. I totally agree with his view and I’m going to analyze an English textbook in terms of ‘structure of knowledge.’ Before starting the analysis of the textbook, I want to make sure whether you know what the structure of knowledge in English is or not. English is a language so it is more or less different from other subjects. Thus, the core idea of English must be the way the native English speakers listen, speak, write and read. Then, do your English textbooks contain the core idea in English? I don’t think so. I chose the English textbook published by Doosan for the second grade high school students. I’m going to find some drawbacks in it and suggest some solutions to them. Now, let me go into the analysis of the textbook.

Each chapter of this textbook basically consists of listening, speaking, reading, writing, vocabulary, and grammar in this order. On the average, two pages are allocated to the listening and speaking parts respectively in each chapter. In addition, five pages is assigned to the reading part, and the same pages are to the vocabulary and grammar parts. Though this textbook, according to the Korean 7th curriculum, seems to have more pages for speaking, listening, and writing than other textbooks usually have, virtually it is not different from the previous English textbooks in Korea. In other words, we can see it focuses on the reading and grammar parts. How many native speakers do you think consider these two parts are really important in learning English? The answer would be ‘few.’ Because it is a language, English is based on listening and speaking just as other languages. From now on, I am going to examine the listening, speaking, and writing parts rather than the reading and grammar parts which are thought to be relatively sufficient.

First, let us take a look at the listening part. Once you look at this part, you will notice that there are only two pages allocated to it. The contents of the activities are mainly composed of some simple question forms of multiple choices relevant to listening, which student can solve rather easily. Simple questions are not always helpful for students, and in fact, the listening part is not often dealt with in the classroom. The listening parts in this textbook do not contain any dictation or shadowing activities. I suppose you already know what dictation is, but you may not know what shadowing is. Shadowing is a way to train one’s listening ability by listening to a conversation and repeating immediately after what we just heard. Both of them have been proved to be very effective ways to improve one’s listening skill including speaking and writing skills. It will be much better if we change listening part to contain dictation and shadowing activities.

The second one is the speaking part and only two pages are allocated to this part on the average. In the ‘first’ page of this section, we are given only a few dialogues and we can notice there are some marks on the grammatically important parts in bold strokes. Also, there are some activities for practicing several sentences without adapting them to some other situations. The dialogue is always made between A and B; for example, if A says, ‘could I ask you a question?’ B replies, ‘what is it?’ There are similar pairs of sentences or students to practice. Those activities I have shown you here are no other than the rote training. I suggest that we should make the speaking section with meaningful activities. For instance, these could be a way of showing students some pattern phrases such as ‘I would like to’ and ‘I am sorry to tell you that’, and letting them adapt these expressions to the meaningful situation.

Lastly, the writing part has some flaws in it as well. Here are some words being mixed in a blank in a sentence. To complete the sentence, students should rearrange these words in order. This part has also contains some practice which intends to make a summary of an article, but the basic format is already given to the students, allowing them to do not enough practice for writing. It, on the surface at least, seems to require students to use accurate grammar as well as to do creative writing. In addition, there is little room to write about students’ opinion regarding the content of an article or something. I would like to change this part to have much more space for writing including some practical writing such as email and diary rather than rearranging a sentence.

So far, we have explored one of the English textbooks used in public high school, and found some drawbacks. Apart from my suggestions, there would surely be some good solutions to the problems. The aims of English education are to encourage students to use English in real life and to help them not to have difficulty in communicating with foreigners when necessary. English consists of not just reading and grammar parts but all four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. It is obvious that every English textbook should contain a lot of meaningful contents and activities. In short, English textbooks should include the ‘core idea’ of English. I was very impressed when I heard a saying, “teach less, learn more.” Do you know what it means? It means that we should teach students the core concepts of a subject in order that they use them when they come across a lot of new knowledge or situation in the subject. I hope that all English textbooks in Korea will be suitable for both teaching and learning the structure of knowledge in English.

Hi Eujin! I am Sangwook.

We are the only two students with the same topic. What you have written is in part similar to mine and in part different from mine. I totally agree with your opinion that each part(listening, reading, writing, and speaking) is not integrated well in a chaper but at the same time, I would like to recommend you that it would be better if you add some solutions to the problems in English textbooks in Korea.

Thank you for writing this valuable essay. :-)

Textbook Review (English education)

By EUJIN JEONG

[image]
Have you ever heard of integrated skills in learning English? Integrated skills mean having continuity when you learn English contents and skills. Recently, many people insist that integrated skills be very important when students learn English in the class. So, some of them suggest changing present textbooks into advanced textbooks which contain integrated skills. Then, does this suggestion mean that the current textbooks do not include any contents related to integrated skills? To find out what contents and English skills are included in current textbooks, let’s review one of the textbooks used in public school. The textbook which I am going to review is published by Jihaksa and used in high school English classes (I also learned English with this textbook in high school days).

This textbook is made up of 12 chapters and dealing with various kinds of topics from sports to the Earth. Each chapter consists of 14 or 15 parts which are carefully designed to improve students’ English skills. If you look at these parts carefully, you will find these have some similarities in contents and can be categorized into four different parts; listening, speaking, reading and writing. Each chapter contains exercises and practices for four essential skills in language learning. To improve genuine English ability, equal development of these skills is crucial because those four skills are needed in terms of well-balanced language development. The authors of this textbook knew the importance of the four skills, and thus included practices or activities in aims of developing those skills. However, this textbook needs some improvement in developing integrated skills. Although this textbook has sections designed to develop each language skill, there is not enough integrity among the four skills.

Then, let’s review this textbook more specifically. Every chapter starts with a part in which students listen to a script related to the main topic. After listening, some questions are given and students have to answer the questions. In each chapter, first three pages consist of exercises and questions developing listening skills. The next part is speaking. This part is little different from previous listening parts. This part consists of various activities like listening & reading a dialog, speaking own opinion and communicating with other students using key expressions. Although activities are somewhat related in terms of content, they are not integrated enough to generate one overall productive output. If there is more integration among the activities, it would be more effective for students to improve their English proficiency. The third part is reading. This part consists of one or two passages that are related to the main topic. Usually, students just read the passages and then learn important expressions and grammatical points. The last part is writing. But, in this part, there are only simple questions requiring completing blanks and arranging misplaced words. Actually, although this part is titled as “Let’s write,” this part is not related to actual writing skills. This is more like completing blanks, which is not about actual writing skills.

Until now, I reviewed the textbook. Overall, the authors of this textbook tried to include different sections designed to develop different language skills. However, sections in each chapter are not integrated with each other, meaning this textbook is simply organized by multiple skills. Although the quality of contents and activities is quite good, it would have been better to rearrange them to promote integrated skills. It definitely needs some improvements to make it more suitable to develop practical English skills of students. The textbook that I reviewed is one of the government designated textbooks. In Korea, most of the textbooks used in public schools contain similar activities, and are made in a similar fashion. Hopefully, Improvement in secondary school textbooks will bring about positive changes in English education in the country.

-eujinjeong

Textbook review (English Education)By Sangwook Park

Have you ever heard of ‘Structure of Knowledge?’ This term means that every subject has its own structure of knowledge (or its core ideas or concepts). Bruner, a well-known pedagogist in the world, claimed that we should teach students it to make sure that they learn their subjects easily and truly. I totally agree with his view and I’m going to analyze an English textbook in terms of ‘structure of knowledge.’ Before starting the analysis of the textbook, I want to make sure whether you know what the structure of knowledge in English is or not. English is a language so it is more or less different from other subjects. Thus, the core idea of English must be the way the native English speakers listen, speak, write and read. Then, do your English textbooks contain the core idea in English? I don’t think so. I chose the English textbook published by Doosan for the second grade high school students. I’m going to find some drawbacks in it and suggest some solutions to them. Now, let me go into the analysis of the textbook.

Each chapter of this textbook basically consists of listening, speaking, reading, writing, vocabulary, and grammar in this order. On the average, two pages are allocated to the listening and speaking parts respectively in each chapter. In addition, five pages is assigned to the reading part, and the same pages are to the vocabulary and grammar parts. Though this textbook, according to the Korean 7th curriculum, seems to have more pages for speaking, listening, and writing than other textbooks usually have, virtually it is not different from the previous English textbooks in Korea. In other words, we can see it focuses on the reading and grammar parts. How many native speakers do you think consider these two parts are really important in learning English? The answer would be ‘few.’ Because it is a language, English is based on listening and speaking just as other languages. From now on, I am going to examine the listening, speaking, and writing parts rather than the reading and grammar parts which are thought to be relatively sufficient.

First, let us take a look at the listening part. Once you look at this part, you will notice that there are only two pages allocated to it. The contents of the activities are mainly composed of some simple question forms of multiple choices relevant to listening, which student can solve rather easily. Simple questions are not always helpful for students, and in fact, the listening part is not often dealt with in the classroom. The listening parts in this textbook do not contain any dictation or shadowing activities. I suppose you already know what dictation is, but you may not know what shadowing is. Shadowing is a way to train one’s listening ability by listening to a conversation and repeating immediately after what we just heard. Both of them have been proved to be very effective ways to improve one’s listening skill including speaking and writing skills. It will be much better if we change listening part to contain dictation and shadowing activities.

The second one is the speaking part and only two pages are allocated to this part on the average. In the ‘first’ page of this section, we are given only a few dialogues and we can notice there are some marks on the grammatically important parts in bold strokes. Also, there are some activities for practicing several sentences without adapting them to some other situations. The dialogue is always made between A and B; for example, if A says, ‘could I ask you a question?’ B replies, ‘what is it?’ There are similar pairs of sentences or students to practice. Those activities I have shown you here are no other than the rote training. I suggest that we should make the speaking section with meaningful activities. For instance, these could be a way of showing students some pattern phrases such as ‘I would like to’ and ‘I am sorry to tell you that’, and letting them adapt these expressions to the meaningful situation.

Lastly, the writing part has some flaws in it as well. Here are some words being mixed in a blank in a sentence. To complete the sentence, students should rearrange these words in order. This part has also contains some practice which intends to make a summary of an article, but the basic format is already given to the students, allowing them to do not enough practice for writing. It, on the surface at least, seems to require students to use accurate grammar as well as to do creative writing. In addition, there is little room to write about students’ opinion regarding the content of an article or something. I would like to change this part to have much more space for writing including some practical writing such as email and diary rather than rearranging a sentence.

So far, we have explored one of the English textbooks used in public high school, and found some drawbacks. Apart from my suggestions, there would surely be some good solutions to the problems. The aims of English education are to encourage students to use English in real life and to help them not to have difficulty in communicating with foreigners when necessary. English consists of not just reading and grammar parts but all four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. It is obvious that every English textbook should contain a lot of meaningful contents and activities. In short, English textbooks should include the ‘core idea’ of English. I was very impressed when I heard a saying, “teach less, learn more.” Do you know what it means? It means that we should teach students the core concepts of a subject in order that they use them when they come across a lot of new knowledge or situation in the subject. I hope that all English textbooks in Korea will be suitable for both teaching and learning the structure of knowledge in English.

-sangwookpark

You are taking the class about the text book by a professor Kang, so your report is very reasonable and well-organized. Contents in the English text bokk is limited. In addition, the object of the each lesson is a little bit useless. Even if the object learners to acuire balanced English skills, the text contents focus on the reading. It was very helpful report, and you have the mysterious ability in this field.

Thanks for imformative report.

Hi Chulwook. Thank you for giving me a good feedback.
As a matter of fact, I have taken Professor Kang's class which dealt with "Structure of Knowledge." I thought that it is a somewhat abstract concept but it could be very helpful to use in the essay.
Thank you again for your feedback!

Hello! Sangwook!

You are taking the class about the text book by a professor Kang, so your report is very reasonable and well-organized. Contents in the English text bokk is limited. In addition, the object of the each lesson is a little bit useless. Even if the object learners to acuire balanced English skills, the text contents focus on the reading. It was very helpful report, and you have the mysterious ability in this field.

Thanks for imformative report.

-chulwookchoi